USC student helped Americans in his native Iraq. After school, he might get sent back

Iraqi couple fears for their lives if they are forced to go back to Iraq

Zaid Alibadi and his wife Marwah Khamas came to the U.S. five years ago on a student visa after working with the U.S military and embassy in Iraq. The couple fears for their lives if they have to return to Iraq.
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Zaid Alibadi and his wife Marwah Khamas came to the U.S. five years ago on a student visa after working with the U.S military and embassy in Iraq. The couple fears for their lives if they have to return to Iraq.
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COLUMBIA, SC

Zaid Alibadi risked his life to help the American troops serving in his native Iraq. The U.S. government recognized the danger he faced when it admitted his mother and brother to the country as refugees who faced reprisals because of Alibadi’s association with the U.S. military.

But when the PhD candidate’s student visa runs out after he gets his degree at the University of South Carolina, he’s been told he won’t receive the same status — and now he and his wife face the prospect of being sent back next year.

“Do I want to go back? No,” Alibadi says. “But what can I do? I don’t know.”

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A lifelong admirer of the United States, Alibadi started working with the U.S. military in 2011 after finishing up his undergraduate studies in Baghdad. As the Americans prepared to withdraw from the country that year to U.S. bases in Kuwait, Alibadi acted as their eyes and ears on the Iraqi street, feeding information back to his officer contact. He went on to work in the U.S. embassy, vetting Iraqis to work with Americans in the city’s fortified Green Zone.

Alibadi consulted an immigration attorney and learned that in order to challenge his status in court, he would have to lose the legal status his student visa already gives him in the country. But that would complicate his hopes of landing a job after he finishes school this spring.

“Then I can’t work,” he said. “That’s not an option.”

Zaid Alibadi and his wife, Marwah Khamas, have relocated to the United States from Iraq where Alibadi worked at the American Embassy. They are fearful for family members still in Iraq but have made peace with the pace of the immigration process.

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As it is now, Alibadi’s best hope is to land a job offer in the U.S., which would allow him to extend his visa for up to three years. Failing that, he and his wife Marwah Khamas will be asked to leave the country by next August.

“It’s one of the Catch 22s in the system that you can’t apply for refugee status if you’re already here,” said Ted Goins, president of Lutheran Services Carolinas, which helps relocate hundreds of refugees from around the world in North and South Carolina every year, including Alibadi’s relatives.

“We’re afraid if we didn’t get any way to stay here legally and we were forced to go back to Iraq, we would just be in the same situation as my sister,” he said. “Maybe our lives will be threatened.”

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While her husband has been in school, Khamas has been working retail at Belk on a temporary work authorization — alongside her mother-in-law, who now has permanent residence in the U.S. and now owns a home. His brother Hasan began working at Amazon’s Lexington County distribution center last year, and may soon move to Charlotte.

But Alibadi has pushed back his planned departure from USC’s Columbia campus to keep his visa, and has even applied for authorization to work in Canada if he needs to. Nevertheless, he is still optimistic that things will work out.

“I’ve always been an optimistic person, so yeah, I’m still optimistic,” Alibadi said. “Six years ago, I was in Baghdad. Security was really horrible, (I was) dealing with death on a daily basis. Now I’m in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, finishing my PhD.”

So when he considers what could be his last year in the U.S., “hopefully, some miracle will happen,” he said.

Bristow Marchant is currently split between covering Richland County and the 2020 presidential race. He has more than 10 years’ experience covering South Carolina. He won the S.C. Press Association’s 2015 award for Best Series on a toxic Chester County landfill fire, and was part of The State’s award-winning 2016 election coverage.